The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-30
MRS. CLEVELAND AT HOME.
Receiving Visitors-She Likes the
White House-An Early Riser.


White House-An Early Riser
FSom the Epoch.
Those who are fortunate enough to have
the chance to meet Mrs. Cleveland at home
are received by her in the Red Parlor, the
most home-like of apartments on the semi
public lower floor of the White House She
meets her guests with charming welcome,
! unconstrained, vet dignified. She talks
freely and frankly about most subjects
but politics. Touch politics, and she
laughingly diveits the conversation
to. books, or people, or perhaps to
the drama, for she confesses to liking for
the theatre so strong that she is sure she
must curb it, She has also great fondness
for the opera. If she knows how to be sar-
castle she does not show it. She is not
critical. With much of the tact of Dorothy
Madison, she evidently prefers e. make
friends rather than enemies for her husband
and herself So she seeks to win, not to
provoke. While she addresses you, you are
| the person i'll whom she is most interested,
Mrs. Cleveland likes the White House
She has never Joined in the chorus of de-
traction OF the building that it was once
regarded as proper to laise whenever it was
mentioned. She is interested in its history,
in the fact that Martha Washington, who
never lived in it, saw its foundations rising
while her husband was yet President
When she refers 10 the somewhat limited
privacy that she enjoys, Mrs. Cleveland re-
calls Mrs. Abigail Adams written amaze
ment, on her arrival at the house, when it
was to be occupied for the first time, to find
upon what "a grand and superb scale" it
was constructed, her reflection that it would
require 'about thirty servants to keep the
apartments in proper ORDER" and her fear
to light 1.-THE great castle" would alone be
"a great tax"
But Mr.. Cleveland does not have much
of 1.-THE great castle" to herself, nor are
thirty servants required to keep it in order
She has boudoir and four or five other
rooms on the second foo. for her own use
and for the hestowal of guests. Her boudor
opens upon central corridor, comfortably
furnished for and used as a family sitting
room. There are some good paintings of
American scenery by American artists on
the walls, a portrait of the President, some
bric-a-brac, prevailing air of home-like-
ness, and. occasionally in the evening, lit
tie good tobacco smoke from the Presidents
open upon this corridor sitting room. The
afternoon sun enters it through a semicir-
GUAR window. filed with stained glass and
| screened with growing plants. In summer
the fragrance from the conservatory just
below ascends through this window to fill
the house
An early riser, like the President, his wife
is also, like her husband, busy during the
day. She does not assume management of
the house, beyond such occasional supervis-
ion as may be Necessary to maintain order
and regularity. The morning brings to her
volume of letters that has been constantly
growing. A thoughtless wrteriL an other
wise friendly paragraph wrote while ago
that Mrs. Cleveland personally responded to
all letters received by her. An
avalanche followed She had been re-
ceiving more letters than she could
answer. Now there were more than she
could take time to open. Most of them con-
tanned requests for scraps of her wedding
| dress Distressed women, anxious to save a
homestead, wrote for loans of 5000 to
$4,000, to ''save the old place" One
woman wrote to ask for specified number
of yards of velvet, that was to be mazarine
| blue in color, and in addition she wished to
have enough material for a wrap OF ap-
phcations for autographs and photographs
| there is no end.
To attempt to answer all these letters
would be out of the question. To read
| them allis unnecessary. If Mrs. Cleveland
| undertook to respond favorably to all who
| write to her, she would keep stenographer
| and a photographer constantly at work; she
would gradually rob herself of her ward
robe, and she would bankrupt the President.
| So large part of the correspondence is
turned over to one of the executive clerks,
| to be answered with printed form, signed
by Col. Lamont, Mrs. Cleveland personally
responding only TO letters from her per-
sonal friends
The afternoon is short at the White House,
and the time is well occupied. If Mrs
Cleveland has opportunity she reads. Kind
friends, authors who wish to have her see
their books, and publishers send her new
volumes. She gets from three to ive day
In her ambition to know something about
each of them she finds that she is beco ming
spoiled as a reader. She reads some light
literature She also Fl ids time to read some
thing in the newspapers, to scan magazine
or two, and to enjoy the Epoch.
Out of the season of formal receipt ms
and dinners at the White House, the after
dinner hours are usually quiet and restful
to Mrs Cleveland There is eldorn a day
that the President does not have guest or
two to dine with him The wives of Cab
met officers t. eque tly call later, with or
without their husbands, for they are like
members OF the White House family. An
occasional theatre party, in which the
President joins, varies this programme.